Ali M. El-Agraa

Ali received his earlier education in the Sudan. In 1959, he obtained Division One in the Sudan School Certificate (awarded by the University of Cambridge, UK, in collaboration with the Sudan Examinations Council). In 1961, he took the Intermediate Examinations (roughly equivalent to British A-Levels) in the University of Khartoum with Honours in all three subjects (Economics/Mathematics, Geography and Social Anthropology). In 1964, he was awarded a BSc (Econ) Honours, by the University of Khartoum, externally examined by UK universities, including Cambridge, Oxford and The London School of Economics and Political Science.

For his postgraduate studies, he went to the University of Leeds (UK), where, in 1967, he obtained an M.A. in Economics with Distinction. After becoming a lecturer in economics at the University of Khartoum in 1967, he returned to the University of Leeds in 1968 to research for his doctorate under the supervision of the late Professor Arthur Joseph Brown, but before finishing his doctorate, the University of Leeds appointed him Lecturer in Economics in 1971. In 2000, he was awarded a PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) by the University of Leeds for a thesis titled Theoretical and Policy Aspects of Protection and International Economic Cooperation. In 2001, he was awarded a higher doctorate (DSc) by Japan's Kyushu University for his book Regional Integration: Experience, Theory and Measurement,^[2] and for his overall academic record.

Ali's main academic field is International Economics, with several books (some translated into Japanese and Chinese) on various aspects of the field. Most of his research is on International Economic Integration, with the 9th edition of his 1980 book, The Economics of the European Community, published as a students' text in October 2011 by Cambridge University Press with the title The European Union: Economics and Policies.

Ali began his academic career in 1964 when he was appointed by the University of Khartoum as a Senior Scholar (their official term for Assistant Lecturer) in Economics, in the Faculty of Economic and Social Studies.^[3] He was promoted to Lecturer in Economics in 1967. In 1971, he became Lecturer in Economics with the University of Leeds, School of Economic Studies, which became Leeds University Business School, LUBS. He was promoted in 1981 to Senior Lecturer there, a position he retained until 1993. But before then, he joined Fukuoka University in Japan as the Professor of International Economics and European/American Economies in the Faculty of Commerce,^[4] a position he held until retirement on 31 March 2011 as Emeritus Professor of International Economic Integration,^[5] in recognition of his contributions to his academic field.

Ali has held several visiting academic positions: Visiting Professor' of the Economics of the European Community at the University of York (UK) during 1980–81; Visiting Professor (of International Economics, Middle Eastern Studies and West European Integration with the Graduate School of International Relations, International University of Japan, during 1984–86; Visiting Professor of the Economics of the European Community, Fudan University, Shanghai in February–March 1985; and Visiting Professor of Economics with Vanderbilt University (Nashville Tennessee, USA) during 1997–98. He was also Adjunct Professor of EU Studies (with, inter alia) Kyushu National University, Seinan Gakuin University and Kyushu Sangyo University all in Fukuoka, Japan, for various periods during 1989–2000. He has taught several intensive graduate courses at the Japan International Development Institute, sponsored by the World Bank in Tokyo, Japan in 1986, and Chulalongkorn University, in Bangkok, Thailand, in 2010.^[6]